Backyard engineer
Richard Bosch looks a little like Santa Claus, and to his family he's just as magical.
While other grandpas charm the kids with electric trains around the Christmas tree, Richard Bosch has fascinated his grandchildren by building them a train they can actually ride on. The train travels on 750 feet of track in his West Liberty backyard.
"I always had an interest in (building engines). … It's kind of neat to take something and make it actually work," said Bosch, tugging at his curly white beard.
He worked in the engine room of a ship while in the Navy in 1956 and attended machinist school in the Great Lakes. Bosch retired after spending 37 years with Cooper Bessemer in Grove City, mostly as a machine shop inspector.
"In 1982, I accumulated some machine tools. I could buy scrap up in the shop," said Bosch as he entered his own little factory, a former one-room schoolhouse that once stood in Worth Township.
"I bought it for a dollar for my daughter's horse," he said.
Bosch has since torn down and rebuilt the structure, which is now crowded with scrap metal, machines, an air compressor and all sorts of engines, finished and in progress.In addition to the gas-driven train that runs on Bosch's 2½ acres in West Liberty, he has built several steam engines, a cannon and two rifles — not to mention his expansive work shop, his home and an impressive model train display.But the ambitious senior citizen is just shy of realizing his lifelong dream: to build a full-scale steam engine."He put it on hold to do other projects," said his wife, Kathy, who remembers one of the first, a train he built for their six children."I started out with a pedal truck for the oldest boy," said Bosch, speaking through a blade of grass he held in his teeth. After the truck rotted out in the late 1970s, he began building the gas-driven train, christened the General Lee by his grandchildren.Like everything Bosch builds, the General Lee is built mostly from scrap, other people's castoffs. In 1982 he built the caboose from his neighbor's smokehouse. The tongue-and-groove wood ceiling of the passenger car is made of material he salvaged and "cleaned up" from a house his buddy was tearing down. He used the same wood for the doors of the station house, a former pig house that Bosch rebuilt.Sounds tedious, but Bosch has a lot of help. This love of engines is a family affair.
"I helped paint it," said Trevor Senge, Bosch's 12-year-old grandson, pointing to the General Lee's newest passenger car.His "pap" fired up the engine and Trevor boarded the train. "I helped screw the chairs in too. Pap did the ceiling. It's amazing what he did," Trevor said.Trevor's sister Catherine popped her head out the window of the caboose as the train chugged along its shady path. The property had been a cornfield in 1964, but now looks more like a park. "I bought and planted all the trees," said Bosch.Carrie Senge, who is Bosch's daughter and Trevor's mom, built the wooden playhouse at the center of the loop. She also spotted the intricately carved benches at a local builder's supply company and had to have them for the General Lee. "We built the car to fit the dimensions of the benches and we got it done in time for Greg's (her other son) fifth birthday."The Bosches have a collection of piñatas hanging in the station house to commemorate each of the grandchildren's birthdays celebrated with train rides."You know it was great growing up … to have your very own train. It was pretty extraordinary," Carrie said.Under her father's tutelage, Carrie built a steam engine that Trevor exhibited at the annual steam show this year in Portersville. Greg also exhibited one that his grandpa gave to him.Besides her father, Carrie credits the steam show school and junior auxiliary for helping her acquire her skills with engines."I first went to the steam show in 1977 when I was just 2. We'd camp out down there. I'd get all sooty and show up at the square dance all cleaned up. They called me Cinderella," she said.Keeping the tradition, the Bosch grandchildren each have a job at the steam show. All like to spend time in "pap's" shop, working on the new steam engine and revisiting the old ones."They plan out what they're gonna do and they get all the engines going with the air compressor," said Kathy. Her grandchildren giggled and mounted the black metal frame of the soon-to-be full-scale reproduction of a steam engine once used by loggers.
"The whole thing is made up of scrap. I made all the parts of the thing," said Bosch, who never uses the expensive kits used by most hobbyists."I didn't have any blueprints but I have pictures and I make sketches. There's a little bit of math involved. … The originals (steam engines) were made in Corry, Pa., by the Climax Company in the days before they had big trucks to get the logs out," he said.The frame of his engine sits on a "break-in track" that Bosch installed to "keep his interest up.""It's been 10 years. I got the idea in 1986 but didn't have the big lathe yet. ... I hope I get it done before I croak," he added.Even though it's not complete, the children are ready to show off pap's latest creation. "Trevor, shift it down into forward gear," instructed Bosch recently to his helper."Now reverse the engine," he said as Greg ran into the adjoining room to start an air compressor that was connected by a hose to the engine. Amazingly, the 7-year-old understood just how many pounds of pressure to apply."You want in there Madaline?" he asked his granddaughter, who quickly responded by climbing onto the front of the structure. "Watch your feet!" Excited, the children's faces lit up as the engine began to chug and the gears started turning."It runs on air now, but someday it will run on steam. The boiler will lay right in there," said Bosch proudly. As he watched the frame advance and retreat with his grandchildren in tow, a broad smile peeked out behind his whiskers and he seemed to light up too … almost as much as the children did.
